Joomla Template Design Book Giveaway & Resources

Published
February 24, 2009
by
Chris Coyier

I get asked from time to time to do more stuff about Joomla. Joomla just happens to be one of those things I know very little about. I've never worked with it and I haven't run across the need for it just yet. I tend to reach for WordPress by default because I'm really comfortable with it and I feel like I can do about anything I want to do with it. However, there are some scenarios that I know I would reach for Joomla instead:

Site need a lot of user management (lots of users with different roles)

Site was built from a lot of "modules", as in, lots of different style pages built from reusable blocks

Fortunately, I'm extra prepared now, because I have Joomla! Template Design that Packt Publishing was nice enough to send me. The book is an in-depth step-by-step through building a theme and is up to date with the current version of Joomla!

The book is a pretty nice walkthrough of building a site completely from scratch, and does a good job of focusing on the modular style of Joomla!. It even covers some bonus stuff like building dropdown menus from your content.

Win a Free Copy of Joomla Template Design

I have an extra copy of this book to give away to one of you. We'll run it just like we did the jQuery book giveaway. Just leave a comment on this post with "Joomla!" somewhere in the text and that's good enough to enter. Please use your real email (will never be published or shared), so I can reach you if you win.

If you do win, I'll shoot you an email to get your mailing address and then I'll drop it in the mail for you.

Chris I am currently working on a design for a online magazine that will have joomla manage all my content. I too have never worked with joomla, so this would be a much appreciated book to have. Thanks Chris

Joomla! is still my favourite CMS (although I would also want to learn some Drupal). I’ve had some serious struggles with Joomla!’s way of creating templates (especially because Joomla! places it in tables and works with “build-in” classes), so I hope this book helps me understand the CMS even more to create more beautiful templates :) .

I have developed a few sites with Joomla! and it’s no easy task to get started out. This book is really helpful for learning where to start. Our network site is built with Joomla!, but we’re thinking about moving to Drupal for the next iteration. I’ve never used Drupal, but I’m assuming it is very similar to Joomla!

Wow, there are already a lot of these! I’d like to enter as well for a chance at the Joomla! book. I think it’s a great, powerful too. I have another Joomla book that’s quite useful, and manage Joomla sites. Thanks so much!

Grrr… you made me give up my role of anonimous-daily-reader just the slight chance of being able to expand my CMS knowledge without constantly looking at a screen. Strange enough, Joomla was my introduction to CMS in general. After that, for some unknown reason, I never used it again.

I go this book when I found myself in about the exact same situation as you are. Although, the book is really a easy read and sums it all up pretty well, I still think there’s nothing like WordPress ;-)

Joomla! is something that I’ve been wanting to learn and simply haven’t had the time yet. Something like this book would likely facilitate that process to the point where I couldn’t put it off anymore. :P

Joomla! is something that sits there in Cpanel just waiting for me to toy with, yet I have not jumped in. I do development for my own small family of sites, consider myself an amateur and maybe something like this platform is what I need.

One day on my way to a tea party with my friend “Joomla”, I came across a giant that was also named “Joomla”. So I invited it to come to the to tea party, and we sang “There’s no tea party like my Joomla’s tea party” all night long.

I could definitely use this book, but I highly doubt I will win this because the number of entries. I would use it to expand my knowledge as I had to let someone else at my IT place code a template into Joomla! CMS and that was very depressing as I like to code my own designs but I unfortunately I was not familiar with Joomla! at that time.

Joomla isn’t half bad once you get the hang of it. True that it isn’t the perfect solution for everyone and every site, but it does have its purpose. I’m definitely going to be checking more into WordPress.

I’ve just started my first web design job and one of my tasks is to learn the backend of joomla and create custom templates for it, just like I am currently doing with wordpress. This book would really set me on my way.

I currently use Drupal as my main cms system, as well as starting to get into WordPress more as its so popular and a truly amazing system.
I used to use Joomla! back a few years ago and would love to get back into it. The book sounds like it could be pretty good.

Whats your thoughts on Joomla! 1.5? Right now with the sites I develop Drupal has always come out on top as the right player for the site…but Im wondering about whether to actually consider Joomla! more. Your thoughts?

Who doesn’t like free stuff? ;) I still haven’t even ‘graduated’ from WordPress yet, so Joomla! could be overkill at this point, but your site is starting to make that more of a reality everyday….. keep it up!

I would love to win this Joomla! book since I would like to start using joomla!. many request out thre for building Joomla! websites.
If had this book I would sit down for a few days stright and get my first joomla site up and running and just be so happy.
Get myself half a litter of premium Goldstar beer and sip it down with joy.
Hope I get picked.
keep those amazing and most helpfull podcast coming.
thanks
Adam :)

I went to the shrink the other day, because I keep shouting “Joomla!” randomly when I’m taking the bus, he said it was okay, but there was one thing I definitely needed to do, which was entering this contest. So here I am! :-)

I would definitely want this book!! all your tutorials helped me out allot so far, so adding a book to my collection of gathered tutorials from your site would help me out even more in my quest to learn web-programming!

PS: if you guys had problems with the speed of download on the site, it was probably me mass-clicking all possible download buttons =)) … “Pretty buttons” :o

Good luck to everyone, and for Chris, thumbs up on your hard and great work!

I love working with Joomla when I design sites with a lot of interactivity. I designed my Lunch Selector using Joomla http://www.todayslunches.com. I would love to win this book so that I could make beautiful Joomla Sites

Is it too late to enter to win the Joomla! Template design book? I hope not. From the description you gave of the book, Chris, this sounds like a good way for a newbie to begin learning. Hope to hear from you!

“Joomla!”“Joomla!”“Joomla!”“Joomla!” I love “Joomla!”“Joomla!”“Joomla!”. And I want to master “Joomla!”“Joomla!”“Joomla!”…. This is a great site I love your work!!!!!!!! I hope I win my “Joomla!” book.

this book is for joomla 1.0.8 but the last version is joomla 1.5.9.
and thre is big deference between the 1.0.x and 1.5.x. and after months the Joomla comunity will launch the 1.6.x of the CMS and stop support of the 1.0.x

I’ve been trying to decide among a few different content management systems for an upcoming site. So far, I’ve been most eager to learn Joomla! I’d love to be able to apply what I regularly learn on CSS-Tricks in a Joomla template.

I have deployed several Joomla websites for clients and have been able to help them “grow” their websites by offering to add new modules. I think this is one strength of Joomla. I could really use the book!

There’s a fantastic database application development tool for Joomla! called Fabrik (www.fabrikar.com). We’re just getting our feet wet with it, but it’s the reason we chose Joomla! over WP for our main site when we redesigned.

Yeah, I really like such give-aways, especially this one.
I recently started getting into the matter of Joomla! and would be really pleased about a copy of this book. I’m looking forward to the drawing. ;-) Greetings!

Hi Chris,
I recently came upon your site (seraching for css tutorials). I started watching you videos. You have a good approach to teachng various techniques. I would like to see a video on Joomla(after you finished the book)

Chris… the Joomla book offer is very nice. I have been following this site from the beginning… and have seen the magnitude of wonderful CSS and a great deal more than that…that you have freely given in order that the inspirational and creative element that is the “web” remains foever robust while eqiually enchanting. I’d say.. “keep up the good work” if I didn’t know you better. I think you had code in your DNA before CSS was even invented. Cool huh? Thanks for everything.

It’s quite hard to found some great stuff’s with a good teaching for things like that.
This book can help a lot. Sometimes is better you personalize a wonderful CMS
like joomla than make the whole code by youself. Joomla Rocks!

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